NEW AND VERSATILE ULTRAHIGH-VACUUM SCANNING TUNNELING MICROSCOPE FOR FILM GROWTH EXPERIMENTS

With the increasing popularity of the scanning tunneling microscope (S TM) in surface science, many ideas for additional and new technical fe atures have been proposed. The work herein contributes to this evoluti on with a special STM design. The STM described is part of an experime ntal apparatus for thin him growth investigations in ultrahigh vacuum. Besides the STM, the apparatus includes facilities for thermal desorp tion spectroscopy and Auger electron spectroscopy and a Kelvin probe f or measuring dynamic work function changes. The Kelvin probe is optimi zed for gas adsorption experiments as well as for in situ film growth investigations during metal deposition. These added features combined with the STM and easy sample transfer yield a new powerful tool for in situ controlled preparation and extensive characterization of thin fi lms. In the present work we describe the novel features of this STM an d we demonstrate the efficiency of the whole system by giving a few re presentative results. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6 748(98)01907-8]